


The First House (For Sale)

by ionthesparrow



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:31:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionthesparrow/pseuds/ionthesparrow
Summary: RARE HISTORIC WATERFRONT property located on private island. Lofty elevation offers 360-degree breathtaking views while maintaining unparalleled privacy. Elegant mansion on half acre showcases stunning, original stonework and moldings. Highlights include superb formal living and dining spaces with exposed beams and dramatic skylights, kitchen with full size walk-in freezer, library, multiple outdoor terraces, indoor pool, and exercise salle with original wood floors. Grounds include out-of-sight 8-slip marina, discrete staff quarters, and greenhouses. Some repair work needed to let this one-of-kind property truly shine. Awaiting your vision!
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 19
Kudos: 172
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The First House (For Sale)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).

> Thank you to the Yuletide organizers and to I for reading this over for me. To my recip -- thank you for a lovely letter and prompts, I hope you enjoy this. Happy Yuletide!

* * *

“This is all,” said Harrowhark Nonagesimus, heir of Drearburh, scion of its ruling family, beating heart and blackened soul of this particular blasted patch of crumbling rock, very embodiment of the putrid, diseased essence of the Ninth, “very normal.” 

“Bullshit,” said Gideon, who knew few things in life with the certainty that she knew Harrowhark Nonagesimus was full of shit. 

“Very normal,” Harrowhark repeated. “This is a thing people do.” 

“Bull,” said Gideon, separating it out into two distinct words in order to better make her point, “shit.” 

“Griddle.” Harrowhark stared at her stubbornly, then folded her twiggy, birdlike arms over her chest, setting into motion a great deal of discordant jangling as bone bracelet rattled against bone corset, ending in a terrifying confusion of bone lines. And if Harrowhark thought this was going to effectively convey her supreme disappointment in Gideon, then she’d really underestimated how distracted Gideon was going to be by the extremely morbid version of plaid appearing in front of her. 

Gideon looked away in an effort to prevent her eyes from crossing and her stomach from turning. “Even if this is a thing people do, it’s not a thing _you_ do – you’re not people.” 

Harrowhark sniffed, as though she couldn’t bring herself to disagree with Gideon’s assessment but still wanted to be a real prig about it. “I don’t see what’s so strange about me buying a house.” 

“You have a house!” Gideon gestured adamantly back down the passage Harrowhark had come up in order to get to Gideon’s cell. If she pointed firmly enough, there was a chance Harrowhark might leave and wander her scrawny ass back to the living quarters she shared with her parents. “This place is enormous, and you and your parents have a whole wing. Is it really so hard to share all that with two people?” 

“My parents are dead to me,” Harrow said very primly. 

“Your parents are dead to everybody.” 

Harrowhark shot her a look that made the blackest reaches of outer space look toasty and inviting by comparison. “Anyway,” she continued pointedly, “even if you’re too much of an idiot to realize it, children grow up and move away all the time. It’s what one does. It’s time for me to do the same.” 

“I keep trying to move away and join the Cohort, and you keep shitting on those plans, so why should I care about what you want to do?” 

“I don’t expect you to care,” Harrow said with ice in her voice. “I expect you to comply with the wishes of your House.” 

“Not your House for long though, eh?” Gideon was struck by a pleasant thought. “Hey, if you leave the Ninth House, does that mean you’re not the boss of me anymore? You won’t be able to tell me what to do?” 

“Griddle, I will always be able to tell you what to do, because your brain – ” here Harrow made spiky, black-gloved scare quotes that looked like attacking crow’s feet, “ – is the simplest possible version of a neural network, firing off the basest of all possible desires on a seemingly random basis, with no ability to plan for the future, appreciate when you’re being manipulated, or to do anything, really, other than swing that useless hulk of a sword around.” 

Gideon considered this. “I am really fucking good with that sword, though. Even you have to admit that.” She paused. “Is that why you want me along? The sword thing?” 

“I don’t want you along, I require your presence.” Harrow took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her tone suggested she was all alone, fighting an immense tide of injustice. “And I require your presence because you are eighteen years old and I need a co-signer.” 

A slow grin spread across Gideon’s face. “A babysitting gig then. How much do I get paid?” 

Harrow’s mouth was now two thin white lines of irritation. “I am leaving. I am going to attend this Open House.” She waved the screen of the tablet she was holding, which presumably displayed an advertisement of said Open House, violently in Gideon’s general direction. “I am buying the house. And you are going with me. That is final.” 

Gideon began to question her acquiescence the moment she and Harrowhark stepped foot onto the boat that was to ferry them from the mainland to the so-called “private island” the house Harrow was so fussed over was located on. Or – no – that wasn’t true. Gideon had begun questioning her own judgment _immediately_ after agreeing to Harrow’s plan, because it was Harrowhark, and the great constant in Gideon’s life was being fucked over by Harrow. But she’d really begun super-_duper _questioning things when Harrow showed up in Gideon’s room an hour before the bus was supposed to leave, and made it clear she expected them both to wear the robes and face paint of Ninth House nuns. 

Gideon had tried arguing. “We’re going to look like assholes,” she said. “Like big, blazingly out of touch assholes.” 

“The accoutrement of the Ninth House are a tradition that dates back thousands of years,” Harrow said, pulling at the fingertips of her gloves, adjusting them for what felt to Gideon like the eight trillionth time. “I may be leaving, but I’m not going to throw everything my parents ever taught me straight into the rubbish bin.” 

Personally, Gideon didn’t see why not. “And going to Open Houses – is that a tradition of the Ninth House as well?” 

Harrowhark rolled her eyes. 

“They’re going to think we’re insane, Harrow. They’re going to kick us out before you even make it through the door. Think about it – would you let two bone dust-covered, skull-faced, walking piles of depression into your house? Don’t answer that. Would a normal person?” 

Harrow, who had clearly been poised to answer the first question in the affirmative, deflated a bit. She caught one of her paint-covered lips between her teeth and worried it. “We’ll tell them we’re goths,” she finally pronounced. 

Trying to muster a tone that would convey how much this made her head hurt, Gideon said, “What?” 

“Goths. You know – ” 

“I know what goths are,” Gideon said, imagining her comics’ depictions with a wince. “I just can’t actually believe you want me to say that out loud. To _real people_.” 

“Frankly, Griddle, I would prefer if you didn’t say anything to anyone. I have no idea how many people are going to show up for this thing, but I plan to outmaneuver all of them. We will be putting an offer down on this house by the end of today, and it _will _be accepted. Anything you can not-say in order to not make us look like ignorant backwater fools would be much appreciated.” 

Gideon took a moment to parse those double negatives in her head. “Fine. Have it your way.” 

She’d continued to question both the feasibility of the plan and her own sanity, when after haranguing her into robes, Harrowhark had presented her with an enormous and impossibly heavy suitcase, and demanded Gideon carry it to the bus stop. 

“What the fuck is this?” Gideon had asked. She picked the thing up to test its weight and was surprised that Harrowhark had managed to get it to Gideon’s room at all. The handle strained ominously where it was attached to the body. 

“That is our down payment, obviously. It’s gold. You will guard it with you life, Griddle, or I’ll kill you and have your skeleton do it.” 

Gideon dropped the suitcase and made a face. “Where on earth did you get this much gold?” 

“The catacombs,” Harrow had said, and then refused to elaborate further, forcing Gideon to imagine her prying each and every gold tooth out of 10,000 years of decaying skeletons. 

On top of that, she’d refused to let Gideon bring her sword. (“Of course you can’t bring a sword to an Open House. Griddle, honestly.” 

“You’re bringing bones to an Open House, I don’t think a sword is any worse.” 

“I told you, we’re _goths_.” 

“Like that’s not also a terrible idea – ” 

“It is a _popular cultural aesthetic._” 

“Fine.” Gideon let it drop, mostly because she absolutely could not have this argument again. “What about a knife?” 

“No knives.” 

“You got it.” Gideon had agreed cheerfully, and immediately began making plans for the most feasible way to tape a knife to her back.) 

So by the time the boat had pulled up, looking eminently sinkable, questioning the state of affairs around her was becoming old hat. “Bon voyage!” Gideon called out, and pitched suitcase into the center of the skiff. The ferryman, Harrowhark, and the boat itself all groaned, but despite sitting considerably lower in the water, the vessel remained afloat. 

Gideon shrugged. If they all drowned, at least she wouldn’t have to tell anyone she was a _goth_. Really, the only thing keeping her going forward was that Harrow had promised that as soon as the house was duly signed over, Gideon would be free to catch the next shuttle out of town. She would never have to see the Ninth or Harrow ever again. 

They were met at the front door by a small man in a dapper linen suit. He seemed genuinely happy to see them, even, and Gideon could not quite get over this, to see Harrow. 

“Welcome!” he cried, smiling a smile that would have looked most at home on the simple-minded or the criminally insane. Gideon took an involuntary step back. 

Harrowhark appeared frozen for a moment, equally unsure how to handle a level of enthusiasm that the Ninth had not seen in, oh, probably like eight trillion years. 

“We’re goths,” Harrowhark said, a touch too fast, and with a certain unfamiliar flutter in her voice. “I mean. Yes, thank you. We’re here to see the house. I am Harrowhark Nonagesimus, and this is Gideon Nav, who – ” She trailed off for a moment, as though she hadn’t quite thought this part through. 

Serves her right, Gideon thought. Dragging Gideon to the middle of fucking nowhere. The ad Gideon had read called this place a “private island.” But in person, Gideon thought it looked much more like a desolate crag in the middle of nowhere. A private ferryman had been hired for the day of the Open House, but if Harrow really intended to live here, she’d need her own boat, and trust Harrow to find the one place on earth lonelier and more isolated than the Ninth. Gideon shuddered. 

“ – who is my – my personal trainer,” Harrowhark finished. 

Gideon, heroically, managed to keep a straight face. 

“She is here to remind me of my posture. I need constant reinforcement.” And point to Harrow, because she managed to get all that out as if it were not _completely insane._

The man in the doorway looked at Harrowhark’s ramrod straight back, looked at Gideon, then nodded with apparent perfect understanding. “I see! Well. I am the real estate agent representing the seller. You may call me Agent.” 

Gideon and Harrowhark both blinked at him in silence, and Gideon thought: well why the fuck not? 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. We have seven other interested parties, and all of you were so delightfully prompt. Everyone is in the atrium. If you’ll follow me? I’m going to give an ever so brief history of the house, and then we’ll all go on a tour.” He glanced down at the suitcase by Gideon’s feet. “Your… baggage you can leave in the coat closet, along with your robes?” 

“We will be keeping all of it with us at all times,” Harrowhark pronounced. 

There was a beat of silence. “I see,” said Agent. “Of course.” He turned and with a follow me gesture, began walking into the house. 

Gideon leaned down. “You can’t just say things.” 

Harrowhark sniffed. “Hush.” 

“You definitely can’t say I’m your personal trainer. I mean look at you! Everyone will think I’m bad at my job.” 

“Griddle, shut it. We’re in front of people.” 

And suddenly, they were. Agent turned a corner, and Gideon found herself in a room full of people. Blisteringly, achingly, terrifyingly _normal _people. 

The other Open House attendees had scattered themselves throughout the atrium. Harrowhark froze for a half-beat at the threshold, then scuttled toward one of the darker corners of the room. Gideon sauntered in at what she considered a more casual pace, and pointedly posted up on the wall opposite Harrow. 

Agent made his way to the front of the room, where a lively fire was dancing in a positively enormous stone fireplace. “Friends, friends – I’m so excited you’re here, expressing interest in Canaan House! Canaan House has a long and storied history, of which I am going to give you just the absolutely most brief history. We begin with – ” 

And this was about where Gideon tuned out. She knew plenty about crumbling buildings – what she didn’t know anything about was people. Not the decrepit denizens of the Ninth House, but actual vibrant out-in-the-world _people. _The other interested parties made up quite an array. Up front, closest to Agent, sat a group of three: two women and one man. The man, who was 90% bouffant hair flip to 10% substance, had one too many of his shirt buttons undone and was listening to Agent with the posture of someone who was long practiced at feigning interest. Any survivor of Ninth House sermons would recognize that look. Next to him was a wan woman with a serious, pinched expression, and on the far side of her was – Gideon did a double take – the third member of the trio looked like every romantic lead Gideon had ever read about. Her curving figure was clad in an impossible tight and artfully distressed t-shirt that read: LIVE LAUGH LOVE. 

Gideon briefly entertained a fantasy of some alternate life goals that could be met should said t-shirt be discarded. 

The couple sitting across from them was a pair of women, each with excellent posture, listening very intently to what Agent was saying. They had matching haircuts, and the sort of close-to-matching clothing choices that suggested they would be surprised if anyone pointed out to them how similar they were. 

Gideon widened the field of her gaze, and found that Harrowhark was studying the couple as well. Harrow looked from them to Gideon, curled her mouth in a slight, unreadable way, and silently mouthed the word, _lesbians. _

Gideon frowned. _I’m a lesbian_, she mouthed back. 

Harrowhark made a face. _I can’t believe you made me think about that._

Gideon made a V with her first two fingers, and waggled her tongue at Harrow through the gap. 

Harrowhark looked pointedly away. 

In the rest of the crowd, there were two more figures that stood out to Gideon. The first was another arrestingly beautiful woman who had a shawl draped around her shoulders and In the love seat at a slightly farther remove from Agent, was another arrestingly beautiful woman. She had a shawl wrapped about her shoulders, and intermittently brought one delicate, long-fingered hand to rest lightly over her chest as she endured a bout of rattling coughing. Following every fit, a rather stiff man dressed in the uniform of a medical aide would offer her a fresh handkerchief. 

The second figure to draw her interest was also a woman – this one standing next to a man with a clumsily-tied tie and a stethoscope around his neck. She had the braced posture of someone who had a knife taped to her back. Finally, Gideon thought, someone with some sense. 

Gideon glanced back toward Harrow, to see if she had any other pointed commentary, and was shocked to find her gone. Gideon took another, closer look around the room, counting heads, but Harrowhark was nowhere to be found. Gideon experience a brief pang of distress, because who knew what a misplaced Nonagesimus could get up to, and almost took off to go look for her, before she noticed a folded note that had miraculously appeared balanced on the edge of the suitcase still sitting next to Gideon. 

_ I’ve gone to look around. Stay here and pay attention in case Agent says anything important. And pay closer mind to this case!!!! _

Gideon crumpled the note. She was mostly put out that Harrow had managed to sneak so closely by her without Gideon noticing. Gideon must be losing her edge. But also – fucking _honestly_. Could Harrow not just have asked? Where did she even find time to write this? Was it possible she’d prepared it ahead of time and brought it with her? Maybe her sleeves were stuffed full of all sorts of variations of things she might need to tell Gideon without deigning to speak to her. 

“And finally,” Agent’s voice rang out sharply across the room, as if he had noticed his audience might be growing restless, “I promise we will begin our tour shortly, but I ask that you not go into any locked rooms. There are some spaces the owner is still using for the storage of personal effects. Obviously these will be cleared out soon enough, but in the meantime.” He laughed to himself, high and tinkling. Gideon didn’t get the joke. “Also, there are just one or two tiny spots where some repair work needs to be done – very minor, I assure you. Historic properties and all that. But these areas are clearly marked and cordoned off.” 

Several members of the assembled crowd nodded knowingly, as though this was all something they’d expected to hear. Maybe there was a home buying 101 she and Harrow had missed. Gideon leaned against the wall and tried to look casual. 

“And with that – let’s begin!” 

The tour – for which Gideon dragged along plus suitcase but sans Harrow – was deeply, painfully boring. There were bedrooms: boring. There were libraries: dusty. There were studies: dark. There were many, many hallways: boring, long, dusty, and dark. 

There were terraces of questionable structural integrity that looked gloomy and foreboding under a sky that was currently thick with dark clouds. Gideon watched as the frail woman drew her shawl closer around herself to fight off the sharp wind, and she was relieved when Agent led them back inside. 

There were also a shocking number of places where orange cones and caution tape had been put up to direct them around bits of stone floor that had crumbled, or away from cracked beams, or to encourage them to give a wide berth to ominously taut abscesses of bulging ceiling. 

Gideon was really very seriously questioning whether anyone, even Harrowhark, ought to be living in what felt like a crumbling deathtrap, and some of the other house hunters must have agreed, because Gideon noticed that the sharp-faced woman who had been sitting next to the LIVE LAUGH LOVE Amazon had disappeared. And several rooms later, the discombobulated doctor and his knife-concealing companion also dropped out, presumably to return to the atrium to wait for the ferry to retrieve them. 

Agent led the rest of them on unperturbed, showcasing crumbling brickwork with oblivious flourish, pointing out bits of historic detail with no regard for the cobwebs caked on top of them, and skirting between cordoned-off sinkholes with unhampered enthusiasm. He paused on a landing in front of a flight of particularly dramatic stairs, and turned to face them. “We shall finish our tour by returning to the ground floor and surveying the kitchen – which, I think you will all agree, is the heart of any home.” 

Everyone in the Ninth House was in a constant bad mood, and the only thing different about the kitchen was that it was manned by people who were both in a bad mood and had constant access to knives, which made his statement a bit of puzzle to Gideon – but she didn’t have much time to contemplate that, because a hand slipped into the crook of her arm. 

“You wouldn’t mind terribly giving me a hand as we descend, would you?” A lilting voice said. “These stairs are always so troublesome for me. My balance isn’t what it used to be.” 

Gideon looked down and found herself looking into the upturned face of the delicate, coughing woman. Her countenance was pallid, except for two spots of color high in her cheeks, and the tiniest fleck of consumptive blood at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were wide and gazing up at Gideon with a bottomless devotion. 

Gideon found herself utterly and completely disarmed. 

The hand squeezed her bicep ever so gently. “My name is Dulcinea. I appreciate this ever so much…” There was the upturned inflection of a question as she trailed off. 

“Gideon,” Gideon managed, after a brief pause to remember her own name. 

“Gideon,” Dulcinea repeated, making what Gideon had always thought of as perfectly functional if basic name into something that had flourishes of velvet and burgundy in it. 

And that was how Gideon found herself descending into the Canaan House kitchen, dragging a anchor of a suitcase in one hand, and supporting a slip of woman with the other. 

Dulcinea did not let go once they stood in the center of the vast space. This house’s kitchen had obviously been designed so that a staff of several could work side by side. The stove, the ovens, and the rest of the appliances reflected a capacity for meal prep for a party of dozens. It was all rather intimidating. The grandness of the space was capped off by a large picture window at one end of the room. 

Agent clapped his hands together with an unholy verve. “That’s right! Even in the depths of the kitchen Canaan House offers extraordinary views! What could be better than popping a loaf of bread in the oven, and then waiting for your tea to steep while gazing out at the sea! Come, you must all look!” 

Gideon and Dulcinea obligingly joined the line of others, and everyone filed past the window. When it was their turn to look, Gideon found nothing comforting about the view. This side of Canaan House faced a sharp drop, and the window looked down a sheer cliff face onto the sea-sprayed rocks below. The clouds overhead had grown both thicker and darker, and a wind had kicked up, causing the waves far below to leap and roil with white froth. Gideon looked away, her stomach turning a bit at the sheerness of the drop. She looked instead at the woman on her arm. 

Dulcinea was smiling. She turned to meet Gideon’s gaze. “Don’t they look positively alive?” 

Gideon was saved from having to answer by another of Agent’s gleeful, rapid fire hand claps. “And so, friends, we come to the end of our tour. I’m ever so happy to take questions, if you have any, or we can begin – ” 

His words were cut off by a sudden, enormous crack of thunder, and all of the lights in the house went off. 

Agent’s voice came out of the dark, very small. “Oh dear.” 

Gideon felt Dulcinea’s fingers digging into her arm, and the next thing she heard was the sound of rapid footsteps. Something brushed past her in the dark, knocking her off balance, and she somehow lost hold of Dulcinea in the shuffle. 

Gideon heard a shout, and a startled shriek, and more footsteps, and then the deeply offended voice of the bouffant-haired man calling out, _“Excuse you_.” And then very suddenly, the darkness was cut by the clear, sharp beam of a pen light, held in the hands of the man wearing the stethoscope and pointed directly into the eyes of the bouffant-haired man. 

“Sorry,” the presumably-a-doctor said, then realized what he was doing, and pointed the light at his feet. “Sorry. Again, er.” 

“Goodness what a mess!” Agent cried, looking somewhat more pallid in the beam of the torch, but sounding no less chipper. “What to do, what to do – ” 

“Do you have any spare torches?” Harrowhark asked, which was when Gideon realized that Harrowhark had returned. 

“Ah, yes! Just a moment. If you might come with me, Dr. Sextus?” 

As they retreated, Gideon made her way over to Harrowhark to ask in a harsh whisper, “What did you do?” 

Harrow had the gall to look offended. “Me? Nothing!” 

Gideon snorted. “Then where were you? What did you get up to?” 

Harrow crossed her arms primly over her bony little chest. “It’s not important.” 

“Not important?” 

“Quiet, Griddle!” 

“Not important?” Gideon hissed in a very slightly lower tone. “You leaving me to drag this suitcase around the world’s shittiest mansion, all by myself with these – ” There were no words for what these people were, “ – these _homebuyers_. What am I supposed to talk about with them? At least when the doc took off, he brought his friend with him.” 

“You’re the one who’s always saying she wants to be around more people, how ungrateful can you – ” Harrowhark stopped mid-sentence. “Wait, what did you say?” 

“I was in the middle of calling you a bitch, it’s nice of you to finally pay attention.” 

“No.” Harrow, horror of horrors, placed a hand on Gideon’s arm. “What did you say about the doctor?” 

“I said, at least when he dropped out midway through the tour, he took his scary friend with him.” Gideon considered. “I like her, I think. She looks mean.” 

“I see,” Harrow said distantly. 

“And when that chick – ” Gideon lifted her chin towards the smaller of the two women standing next to Bouffant Man, “ – when she took off, at least those two still had each other to talk to.” 

“I see,” Harrow repeated more forcefully. “Did anyone else disappear during the tour?” 

Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know. You said to pay attention to Agent, not the others.” 

“Think, Gideon. This is important.” 

“Is it?” Gideon didn’t see why. 

“It most certainly is.” 

But before Harrowhark could elaborate, Agent and Dr. Sextus returned, and Harrow’s mouth snapped shut. 

Grinning with a vaguely manic intensity, Agent distributed torches to the assembled crowd. He also imparted the disturbing news that the phone lines were all out, and that with the storm being what it was, there was no way the ferry could land until the weather settled. “I’m quite afraid we’ll all just have to sit tight and wait for it to pass!” He declared, sounding, if anything, delighted about the prospect. 

“Oh, but I have spin class this evening,” Bouffant Man groaned. 

“Shut it, Nabs.” The Amazon rolled her eyes. “No one cares about your spin class.” 

Thunder growled ominously outside as if to emphasize her point. Gideon looked around the room: the two teens were wide-eyed. “Nabs” appeared sourly put-out, and was busy being glared at by his two female companions. The lesbians looked as if they lived by the saying: _hope for the best, expect the worst_, and were just pleased to have been proven right. Everyone else simply looked resigned, except for Dulcinea, who was flushed and now leaning heavily on her aide. 

She coughed delicately. “I shall have to sit down, if you all don’t mind. My blood sugar is terrifically low.” 

The two teens who appeared to have been dragged along by a pleasant looking couple rushed out of her way, as she groped for one of the stools drawn up to the kitchen island. The woman who had been standing with the teens helped Dulcinea sit. “It is getting close to what should be dinner time.” She looked pointed at Agent. 

Agent, holding the torch under his chin, which deliberately or not, made it appear like he was telling a ghost story, exclaimed. “Right you are! Well, the good news is the kitchen is still stocked, I’m sure we can piece together a lovely dinner. And the bedrooms are made up. If worse comes to worse, there are plenty of places for everyone to pass the night comfortably.” 

“Fantastic.” The man who was standing with one hand firmly on the teens’ shoulders stepped forward. “I’m a cook at home. I’d be happy to serve here. And Abigail makes a wonderful dessert, if she’s willing.” 

“Naturally, dear,” Abigail replied. 

“Then we shall feast!” 

Dinner was eaten by candlelight. 

A round of belated introductions had been made, so Gideon knew the names of her motley crew of dinner companions. And normal people, it turned out, were either very good at rolling with unexpected changes in plans, or extremely good at faking it, because conversation flowed easily over the sound of rain battering at the windows. 

Alternatively, the several bottles of red wine that had been opened had something to do with it. 

Magnus, their chef, had expressed some concern about this. “Are you sure we should? I wouldn’t want to take any more than necessary. It might hold some significance to the homeowner?” 

Coronabeth held up the bottle for his inspection. “It’s Charles Shaw,” she pronounced, as if that meant something. And it must have, because he’d then rapidly acquiesced to its opening. 

Coronabeth poured for everyone, except the teens and the two somber men in business attire, who had introduced themselves as Silas Octakiseron and Colum Asht, before the former had paused for an impossibly long time before declaring that they were, “associates.” 

“Well,” Coronabeth said brightly, “the theme for tonight seems to be that it takes all kinds.” She then filled her own glass to the brim. 

Gideon had spent quite a long time thinking about how much she wanted to get out of the Ninth, but tonight was the first time she really began to contemplate what she might be getting herself out into. She looked around the room, wondering if this was really a representative sample of the wider world. 

Marta held her glass in front of her, inspecting the color. “Yes, well, we live in the area, and it may take all kinds, but I can’t say we’re really interested in the neighborhood changing.” Her eyes flicked, inexplicably, to Harrowhark, seated on Gideon’s right. 

Harrow gave a very small eye-roll and said in a low voice to Gideon, “I told you. They’re probably not even interested in buying the house, they just want to poke their noses in and find out who is. They’re the type that looks up tax records and blue prints. They probably even have Yelp reviews of the agent.” 

Gideon refrained from pointing out that these were exactly the sort of actions that Harrow herself would take. 

On Gideon’s left, Abigail seemed skeptical. “I’m all in favor of preserving the character of old neighborhoods – I’m actually something of a history buff. It would be a dream to restore a place like this to period charm. But communities and their needs change. We must be flexible.” 

At the far end of the table, Gideon watched Isaac spell out B O R E D with his peas. 

Silas Octakiseron cleared his throat and intoned, “I think the value of the preservation efforts depends on what was there in the first place. If the original was home to… undesirables, there is no harm in rooting them out.” 

“Oh, please.” Abigail looked to be on the verge of real anger now. “I know what you are.” 

The flat eyes in Silas’ deathly pale face stilled. “Do you?” 

“You’re developers.” She spit the word out, and Gideon decided whatever a developer was, it was clearly evil. “It’s shameful what you do to properties like this. Rip them down and put up shitty, soulless condos.” 

“Oh, my!” Dulcinea breathed, looking very much as if she had discovered a new spectator sport. “Is it quite profitable, this condo conversion?” 

Abigail stood up abruptly. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get the dessert.” 

“I’ll help.” Magnus pushed his chair back and followed with the rapidity of a devoted spouse. 

“Maybe we should speak about something else,” Coronabeth interjected, studying the kitchen left swinging angrily post Abigail powering through it. 

“What’s the point in dancing around it?” Nabs’ voice lolled like a particularly spoiled dog. “The only real option for a parcel like this is to divide it up. The profit margins are fantastic. So what if the location’s not great – just sell it as exclusive.” 

Dulcinea was listening to all this with eyebrows raised. “These are such ambitious plans.” 

Coronabeth knocked back the rest of her wine. 

“Just think, if you knocked down the greenhouses, you could fit in a decent executive course.” Nabs waived vaguely toward the end of the property where the greenhouses currently resided. 

Dr. Sextus and Camilla were looking at him with open disdain. 

“God, he’s even denser than you,” Harrow muttered under her breath. 

“Right?” Gideon crossed her arms over her chest. “Like, read the room, dumbass.” 

Lightning illuminated her point in a dramatic fashion. Two beats later, like the sky had inhaled in order to prepare a particularly dramatic roar, there was a tremendous crack and roll of thunder. Then, just at the end of it, trailing the cacophony like it had been ever so slightly mistimed, came the vivid sound of shattering glass. 

It took the party a moment to pinpoint where the sound had come from. But Dr. Sextus stood abruptly. “The kitchen window.” 

There was a great, en masse rush to the kitchen, where they discovered the window shattered. But there was no storm debris, as Gideon had half-expected to see. No rogue wave had risen up and drenched the kitchen. There wasn’t even very much broken glass, just a void where the window had been, and – 

“Where are Magnus and Abigail?” 

It was Dr. Sextus again who spoke, but no one moved. No one, that is, until Harrow, who took a series of small steps forward until she reached a place where she could look out. 

Gideon wanted to call out to her to not look, or to at least not say anything, because as soon as she said anything, it was going to become real. The fear of what happened, the terror settling deep down in her bones was going to be real. 

Harrow nodded just once, very small and very solemn, and stepped away. 

Dr. Sextus stepped up to confirm, and Gideon found that she didn’t like anyone standing so close to Harrowhark when they were both still so close to that gaping wound. Gideon moved without thinking to draw Harrow back, out of range of any malicious push or errant wind. And in second flash of lighting, she saw the curled forms of Magnus and Abigail, unmoving on the rocks far below, limbs tangled in a way that made any hope of life impossible. 

Coronabeth was pale, arms wrapped tightly around herself. “Did they jump?” 

Isaac, red-eyed and trembling, shook his head. 

“They would never,” Jeannemary confirmed. 

“Then they were pushed,” Dr. Sextus said quietly. 

Agent emitted a small gasp. 

Dulcinea pressed a hand to her throat. “But by who? Everyone was together in the dining room?” 

Dr. Sextus appeared to be trying to focus. “Yes. Naberius was prattling on about golf courses. Camilla and I were listening. Harrowhark and Gideon were doing their synchronized eye-rolls – ” 

“We would never,” Gideon spluttered. 

Harrow, speaking at the same time, tried to say, “I hardly think that – ” 

But Dr. Sextus pushed on. “And the developers. And Dulcinea – ” He trailed off. “But was Protesilaus with us?” 

“Of course he was.” Dulcinea reached behind herself to pat the arm of her faithful companion. “He never lets me out of arm’s reach.” 

But that, Gideon thought, wasn’t true. Because she had helped Dulcinea on the stairs earlier today, and Protesilaus had been nowhere in sight. 

Dinner broke up very quickly. 

In the ensuing panic of realizing there was no way to contact the outside world until the storm subsided, it was determined the best course of action was for everyone to retreat to bedrooms, and reassess in the morning. 

As soon as they reached their assigned quarters, Gideon began the work of barricading them in. She pushed a surprisingly heavy dresser in front of the door, and piled in front of that a decrepit arm chair that was more dust than fabric, but still surprisingly sturdy. She added to the pile the suitcase, which was finally serving a purpose, and a floor lamp, which would at least make noise if anyone tried to enter. At the foot of this mountain, Gideon spread out a blanket, which would be at least as comfortable a bed as the one she had back in the Ninth, and maybe also might help them both in her new goal of not getting murdered. 

Harrowhark sat on the bed throughout all of this, with her knees pulled up to her chest, gazing off into the middle distance. 

Gideon kicked one of the bedposts. “You could help, you know.” 

Harrow jumped. Her eyes focused on Gideon, then on the pile in front of the door in a way that made it absolutely clear she’d been paying zero attention. “Griddle. What are you _doing?”_

“Well I’m not keen on getting my skull bashed in on those rocks, and I’m not about to let you get pushed off a balcony either. Although god knows why.” 

Harrow gave her a look one might give an animal trying to walk on its hind feet. “That’s very considerate of you. But I assure you I can take care of myself.” 

Gideon, who had been in the midst of adding another armload of midsize furnishing to the pile, turned, and in one swift motion threw the seat cushion that had fallen off the arm chair. This hit Harrowhark square in the center of her chest with enough force to carry her over the edge of the bed and onto the floor in a tumble of black garments. 

She made a sound upon the pillow’s impact like that of a deeply offended crow. This was followed by an indelicate thud and a belated, “Oof.” 

Gideon clambered across the bed to look down at her. “So this is what you call taking care of yourself, eh?” 

“You bitch.” From the floor, Harrow reached into her shirt, a motion Gideon recognized as her digging for one of her bone chips. 

“Ah, ah. You’re not supposed to be doing any necromancy. Wouldn’t want to give the game away. We’re _normal people_, remember?” 

Harrow glared, but the bone chips disappeared back inside her shirt. She rubbed her chest instead. “Did you have to throw it so hard?” 

Without thinking about it too much, Gideon extended a hand down to her. “Come on, you nerd. You’re fine.” 

Harrowhark allowed herself to be hauled up. She sat next to Gideon on the bed, which Gideon had noticed was actually just a coverlet pulled over the bare mattress. Only the illusion of luxury. Harrow’s eyes traveled over the door, the barricade, and the nest Gideon had made at its base. She sighed. “Fine. I accept your point. But you will also sleep in the bed.” 

“I – ” 

“I won’t accept you sleeping on the floor. This pile of rubbish is more than adequate as a barrier. There’s plenty of room on the bed.” 

“I – ” 

Harrow patted a spot on the far side of the mattress, then lay back herself. “Go to sleep, Griddle.” 

Gideon was woefully ill-equipped to deal with any of this. “Yes, your highness.” 

In the stillness of the room, she became ever more aware of the sounds of the storm outside, which raged on unrelenting. Rain battered at the windows, like a thousand tiny fists trying to pound their way inside. And woven in between the gusts of howling window, was the soft and entirely too close sound of Harrow breathing. 

Hardly more than a whisper, Harrow’s voice emerged from the dark. “I can take care of myself, you know. And I also – I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, either.” 

Gideon went very suddenly warm all over. A kind of deep-seated super-heatedness that was utterly foreign. And Harrow, lying just inches away suddenly became Harrow, _lying just inches away._

Gideon squeezed her eyes very tightly shut. This had to be some sort of reaction to being a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by weirdos who knew things about wine and adjusted rate mortgages. Very possibly, Gideon decided, she was allergic to – to all of it. She decided the best response to that was to be pretend to be asleep. She lay very still with her eyes closed and hands folded over her chest, as all children in the ninth were taught to sleep, and tried to focus instead on the strange sounds of angry water below. 

She had been lying in this motionless meditation for some unknown period of time when she heard a very faint shuffling sound. This was followed by a creaking groan, and then a distinct clunk, and then a very soft curse. 

Gideon cracked one eye open, and she watched as Harrow, illuminated by the flickering light of the storm outside, very carefully and utterly ineffectively tried to dismantle the barrier in front of door. Gideon watched her yank and strain in a way that was almost adorable. Or possibly Gideon was just sleep deprived. 

Gideon propped herself up on one elbow and cocked her head. “Have you never heard of leverage, Harrowhark? Simple machines!” 

Harrowhark yelped, jumped an extremely satisfying several inches in the air, came down, lost her balance, and ended up on the floor still holding the suitcase handle, which had come away in her hand. The entire precariously-built barricade then began a slow motion landslide, taking with it the suitcase, which, in an active act of self-sabotage, split open and released a tumble of rocks. 

Gideon watched all this wide-eyed. “Crux on a cracker.” She gave a low whistle. 

“Hush!” Half-buried somewhere near the bottom Harrowhark was making furious shushing noises. 

What kind of idiot, Gideon thought, is concerned about someone talking when they just set off a landslide of home goods – “Oh! You were trying to sneak out!” Gideon clapped hands to knees. “Oh, this makes you insisting I sleep in the bed so much better. Oh, thank god.” 

Harrowhark rose to feet and regarded Gideon with hands planted on narrow hips. 

Gideon reached for the torch and began to survey the mess. She pointed the beam at the remains of the suitcase. “Wait a second. Are those – that thing’s filled with rocks.” 

Harrowhark. crossed her arms over her chest. 

“Harrow,” Gideon pointed the light at her. “Those are rocks.” 

Harrowhark squeezed her eyes shut against the light and made an extremely rude gesture. 

“Rocks. Boring gray rocks. Not gold.” 

“I know they’re rocks!” Harrow burst out finally. 

“Harrow,” Gideon continued, as patiently as possible, “you can’t buy a house with rocks.” 

Harrow put her face in her hands and stood for almost a full minute in dead silence, so incandescent with rage, Gideon was convinced she’d be illuminated even without the torch. “I know.” 

“You know?” 

“I know!” 

Gideon sat up. “Then – why?” 

Harrow looked up at ceiling, as if searching for some additional reserve of patience. “Look – ” She stopped again. “Never mind. It’s not important.” She began to clear various items away from in front of the door. The smaller bits she had no trouble with, but when she got to the dresser, it became a struggle. Gideon watched her slide backwards as she attempted to push against it. She slammed her palm against it. “Help me with this.” She paused. “Please.” 

This was novel enough to get Gideon up off the bed. She crossed the room and put her shoulder into the dresser, then hesitated. “Where are you headed off to?” 

“It doesn’t matter. Just help me move this crap.” 

Gideon drummed her fingers over the top of the dresser. “What if I don’t?” 

Harrowhark threw up her hands. “What do you mean, what if you don’t? Do you really want to be stuck in here with me?” 

“No?” Gideon admitted. “But why won’t you tell me where you’re going. You’ve done nothing but lie to me, and lie to everyone else, since we got here – I mean, _goths? _Your personal trainer? What’s with all this bullshit? Not to mention you had me drag around a suitcase full of useless rocks. And on top of all that, I had to spend all day hanging out with fucking weirdo normal people.” 

Gideon paused here to face up to knowledge that her distaste for them maybe means she herself not so normal. But this was hardly the time to worry about that. “And now you’re sneaking out in the middle of night, when there’s maybe a murderer on the loose? And you won’t say where. I mean, honestly Harrowhark, what the fuck? I mean, what the _fuck?_” 

Harrowhark had crossed her arms tightly over her chest and now appeared to be examining one broken and ragged nail. “What… what would you like in exchange for helping me?” 

As if Gideon was in this to be bribed. As if all this was about weaseling some money out of Harrow for – for what exactly Gideon was no longer sure. For the bus journey to the Cohort? Which presumed that they would make it through the night without being tossed out a convenient window? “I want you to acknowledge that my time is valuable. I want you to agree that I should get to make informed decisions. You asked me to buy a house with you – ” 

Harrow’s eyes narrowed. “I never – ” 

“You _did_, though. Technically you did. And I said yes and you still won’t trust me.” 

Harrow’s lips were pursed, an expression that spread until her whole face looked sour. She began speaking slowly. “I’m not… I don’t have a tremendous amount of practice trusting people.” 

Gideon made an expansive _look around you, Captain Dumbass_ gesture. “I mean, duh, Harrowhark! Neither do I!” 

Harrow shifted foot to foot. “Maybe we could… practice on each other?” 

Gideon’s mind briefly went to a terrifying place inspired by a sexy doctor and nurse scene in one of her mags before she forcefully wrenched it back out of the gutter and made a mental note to find out for sure if one could be allergic to normal people, because ever since arriving her she’d certainly demonstrated a strange panoply of symptoms. “I mean, yeah.” 

Fortunately, Harrowhark didn’t seem to notice anything weird. She cleared her throat. “There is… according to some historical records… a treasure hidden in this house.” 

Gideon instantly reverted to suspicion. “What kind of treasure? Something weird and gross and necromancery?” 

“I don’t know, to be honest.” Harrow shrugged. “The descriptions I found weren’t specific. They just said it was of tremendous value.” She tugged at her sleeves until just the tips of her fingers were showing. “I don’t have any money or gold, but I thought – I thought if I found the treasure, I could buy the house with that.” 

She wasn’t looking at Gideon; she didn’t appear to be looking at anything, really. And she looked a great deal younger than Gideon was used to her appearing. Her shoulders were hunched into an abashed crouch and if it wasn’t still so blessedly dark Gideon would swear she could almost make out a blush on Harrow’s cheeks. 

Still. “But then what the fuck have you had me carrying around all those rocks for?” 

“I needed them to take us seriously!” 

Gideon groaned. 

“How was I supposed to know no one brings down payments to an open house? Also, I had a bit of a hunch that the treasure might be some sort of Philosopher’s Stone. And then we’d need raw material to work with.” 

“You had me carry that fucking suitcase all over the house for a hunch?” 

“You like carrying heavy things!” 

Gideon rubbed at a building ache at her temple. “I don’t… one day we’re going to have a talk about hows and the whys of weight training. But in the meantime, that’s where you were going? To look for the Philosopher’s Stone in some attic somewhere?” 

Harrow produced a bone chip from somewhere deep in her sleeve and began turning it over and over between her fingers, in what Gideon recognized as a sign of agitation. 

This was cause for concern. As much as Gideon took pleasure in Harrow not getting her way all the time, an uptight Nonagesimus could lead to all sorts of trouble. More than that, she didn’t look irritated in a _Gideon-sunk-my-secret-battleship_ sort of way; she looked edgy. Which, of course, begged the question what exactly she was feeling edgy about. “Harrow. What aren’t you telling me?” 

The bone chip continued to dance, once finger to the next. 

Gideon ran through the conversation again and began slowly. “If you had a hunch about what the treasure is, that means you don’t know. And you’re worried about something. So if it’s not some magic rock that barfs up gold, what else might it be?” 

The bone chip came to rest balanced on Harrow’s third knuckle before being disappeared back into her sleeve. She offered an entirely false grin. “It really might just be money, you know. A big pile of coins or what have you.” 

“What else might it be?” Gideon demanded. 

Harrow almost reached for the bone chip again, but caught herself. She met Gideon’s eyes. “I really don’t know exactly what it is. The book that mentioned it just implied it might be dangerous. At first I thought it just meant dangerous to get to, but when I read that section again, I think the treasure itself might somehow be dangerous.” 

“Right. Well. That settles it. I’ll be going with you on this treasure hunt.” 

Harrow studied her, her eyes focused on Gideon in a way that Gideon wasn’t used to and that made Gideon want to look down to make sure she didn’t have a splotch of ketchup or something on her collar. 

“Why?” Harrow asked. “I just told you it might be dangerous, and no one’s making you go. So why do you want to?” 

These were the sort of questions that Gideon rather preferred not to have to think about. “Being up here by myself will be boring. Besides, if you disappear how am I going to explain that to Agent and everyone else? They’d be convinced I killed you. That’s a lot of noise I don’t need.” She shrugged. 

Harrow’s face did something strange, and it took Gideon a moment to recognize the expression for what it was: a small, cautious smile. 

“Very well, Gideon Nav.” And she gestured toward the dresser still standing in their way. “If you would be so kind?” 

“Not the attic,” Harrow said, as she led them down the darkened hall, torchlight bobbing just ahead of them. “The basement.” 

Gideon frowned. “There’s no basement mentioned in the listing.” 

“Exactly.” 

She led Gideon down a twisting series of passages, through the kitchens – which caused Gideon a brief shudder – through the pantry to a storage room. And in floor of the storage room, she pointed to the floor. “There.” 

The trapdoor was almost invisible, cut perfectly to match the existing stone. Only when Harrow nearly lay down next to it and used the beam to produce a raking light, did Gideon spot the raised edge. 

Speaking from roughly a half inch off the floor, Harrow said, “It has to be down there. Why else go to so much trouble to hide the way in?” 

Gideon looked down at what rather resembled a pool of spreading darkness with bony bits sticking out. “You have a very devious mind, Nonagesimus.” 

Irritatingly, Harrow looked pleased at this remark. “I’d just found the trapdoor when the power went out. I didn’t get a chance to explore it.” 

Gideon wedged her fingers into crack where the stone was mismatched and heaved to no effect. “I think it’s locked. Didn’t Agent say something about locked doors?” 

“I’m not about to waste god knows how much time on some absurd search for a key. We need to get in there.” 

“Right,” Gideon said and looked around. Then she hit the trapdoor with a handy #10 can of black beans, evoking a satisfying crack. On the second attempt, the door swung open, and they were met with a blast of cold, dry air. “Guess the way has _bean_ opened!” 

“Not now, Nav.” Harrow pointed the torch into the darkness, which revealed a long wooden ladder leading down. A smell of staleness and age wafted up. 

“Well.” Gideon rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “No time like the present.” 

At the bottom of the ladder, they found a long, industrial-looking hallway. Doors labeled as numbered laboratories lined the passage. Harrow illuminated them one by one. _Laboratory 301. Laboratory 303. Laboratory 305. _There were windows next each, but the darkness made it difficult to see inside. 

“Holy shit, what is all this?” Gideon tapped at the glass window in one of the doors, causing a small shower of dust to fall. Nothing down here appeared to have been used in a very, very long time. 

Gideon stepped back. “We should leave.” 

Harrow paused in her examinations. “Why?” 

“I’ve been running through my mind all the reasons someone might have a secret lab in their basement.” Gideon made a point of looking deeply thoughtful. “And yep: none of them are good.” 

Harrow hummed vaguely, but didn’t really appear to be listening. She ran her finger along dust on one of the window ledges. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was bone dust.” She raised the finger to her lips and tasted it. “Bone dust mixed with ash.” 

Gideon had to work to unfreeze her face from an expression of horror. “How come the instant you spot something dead, your first instinct is to put it in your mouth?” 

Her words echoed down the empty hallway. _Mouth outh outh outh._

“Don’t be base.” 

“Me? You’re the one munching on afterlife hor d’oeuvres.” 

_Oeuvres oeuvres oeuvres._

Harrow shot her an irritated look. “Will you pipe down? God, the one thing I ask is you don’t talk about necromancy and here you are shouting about it.” 

“One thing? One thing?” Gideon wasn’t about to pipe down. “You ask for things _constantly.”_

“Oh, for – ” Harrow planted her hands on her hips, which left just a weird section of the floor illuminated. “I’m working constantly to keep everything from falling apart around us, and you resent a few simple tasks? All you worry about is trying to run off to have fun. What a nice, simple world you must live in.” 

“Fun?” Gideon shouted back. “And did you just call me _simple?_ Just because not all of us live with our nose in a book, does that make me simple? Is that why you think should get to direct every waking moment of my life?” 

“I don’t think that!” 

A small part of Gideon noticed that floor seemed to be rumbling. An even smaller part noticed the rumbling seemed to be growing closer. These parts she ruthlessly ignored, because some things were more important. “You do!” 

“I do not!” 

“Oh yeah? What about the suitcase?” 

“I cannot believe you are still mad about the suitcase!” 

A beam of light swung across Gideon’s face, blinding her momentarily. There was an abrupt frisson in the air, one she associated with Harrow’s necromantic workings, and all at once they were nearly bowled over by two running figures. 

It took Gideon a moment to recognize them, as the discombobulated Dr. Sextus was currently drenched in blood sweat and holding up a thanergetic barrier, while Camilla was spattered with copious amounts of just-regular blood and holding a wickedly sharp-looking blade. Her right arm was hanging uselessly at her side, and Gideon had just enough time to think, _what the fuck did that_ – when What the Fuck Did That emerged from around the corner. 

The monster was hard to look at, being a swirling mixture of misplaced and malproportioned parts. There were arms where arms should not be. There were claws attached to legs. There were altogether too many teeth. 

Gideon rushed toward it. 

“Gideon!” Harrow called after her, a strange note of desperation in her voice. “Don’t be an idiot!” 

Oh, right, Gideon thought. She’d completely forgotten she had a knife on her. She yanked the knife free and threw herself at the thing, stabbing with one hand, punching with the other. It was deeply, terrifically satisfying. It had been too long since she’d hit something. Too long since she’d been let off the chain. Gideon had had enough of masks, enough of polite, _normal_ conversation. She’s had enough forced enthusiasm over chair rails and crown molding. Enough inane happy clapping. Enough Charles Shaw. And certainly enough confusing Feelings. 

Now it was just Gideon and _finally_ something she knew what to do with. Gideon’s knife caught in the thing’s weird, leathery skin, and it used the opportunity to rake her shoulder with its claws. Gideon felt hot blood start to flow. “Oh, it’s on now. Now you’ve done it.” She yanked, turned, and slashed. Gideon cut for her teacher, for everybody who had ever held a knife before her. And for anybody who will ever need to after her. She sunk the blade in because this might not be her house yet, but behind her were people she had claimed as her own. With a final thrust, she drove the knife hilt-deep into the thing’s throat. 

It toppled under her. She came to rest on top of it, straddling what may or may not have been the chest. Gideon looked behind her; all three of the others were staring. 

Still panting a bit, Gideon said, “I told you I should get to bring a knife.” 

Harrow’s eyes widened. “Gideon!” 

Gideon felt the monster under her start to shake. The eyes re-opened and horrifyingly, the wound in the throat began to close. She rolled, and dove out of the way just as the thing pounded the air where she had been with both fists, blows hard enough to make the whole hall shake. 

She had to scramble, throwing herself blindly away from those flailing limbs, when all at once the sound of something slicing through the air whizzed by her, and Gideon instinctively flattened herself to the floor. As she watched, lances of impossibly sharp bone flew through the air and thudded home into the monster, pining to the wall with horrible wet thunks. 

This barrage continued for what Gideon thought was rather a long time, and when they finally stopped coming, the monster was pinned to the wall under an angry latticework of bone, and Harrow was standing bent at the waist, hands resting on knees. 

Gideon sat up. She ignored the gristly gurgling noises behind her and looked at Harrow and Dr. Sextus, now decked out in matching disgusting blood-sweat. This caused a belated revelation. “Hey,” Gideon called out to him, “you’re a bone-licker too?” 

Looked purely, perfectly baffled, Dr. Sextus said, “Excuse me?” 

“You’re a necromancer.” Gideon looked at him. She stood and rejoined the group, then she looked at Harrow. She looked at the weird labs and ever so briefly at the still-twitching monster behind her. “Harrow,” she said slowly, “where _exactly_ did you hear about this house?” 

Harrowhark had the decency to look abashed. 

Dr. Sextus pulled off his glasses and began to clean them, which judging from the relative cleanliness of his shirt, was a gesture more of nervous habit than any attempt at augmenting clarity. “I assume she read about it in _Lady Rizington’s Almanac of Historic Necromantic Artifacts_ like the rest of us.” He replaced the glasses. “Third edition,” he added belatedly. 

He gestured toward Harrow. “I was impressed with how up front you were about your necromancy.” 

Harrow straightened. “I told you – we’re goths!” 

“Right.” Sextus shrugged. “I was worried the owner might not be interested in selling to someone who was going to dig the place up looking for necromantic treasure, so I pretended to be doctor, even though Cam said it was ridiculous.” 

“It is ridiculous,” Camilla interjected. She didn’t let the fact that her arm was still bleeding freely detract at all from the amount of judgment she was able to inject into her words, and Gideon respected that. 

Sextus offered her a small grin. “Worked didn’t it?” 

“I sincerely doubt it.” Camilla looked him up and down rather pointedly. “And either way, it’s still ridiculous.” 

Harrow, who appeared to have recovered from exhaustion to her base state of irritation, frowned. “Wait. Are you implying that everyone looking at the house is a necromancer?” 

“Well, at least one in each party, for sure.” He paused. “Are you saying you didn’t notice?” 

Enough of Harrow’s face paint had worn away at this point to reveal a deep red blush. 

“Hey.” Gideon jabbed Sextus in the shoulder. “So we don’t get out much, step off.” 

Sextus took a step back, and at same moment Camilla took a step forward in such chef’s kiss synchrony that Gideon could weep. 

When no violence seemed to be forthcoming, Camilla relaxed and Sextus cleared his throat. “I was reasonably sure no one else had discovered trap door, but then we ran into – ” He gestured toward the monster, which was now thrashing to no effect against its bonds, “ – that, which, by the way, I’m assuming you didn’t set on us?” 

Harrow sniffed. “Of course not. I hate working with the wet, messy bits.” 

“Right.” He looked for a moment at Camilla before returning his gaze to Harrow and Gideon. “But that means that either someone else has found their way in, or that the treasure is, as advertised, immensely dangerous. If that thing was the very first bit of protection we ran into, then I know for a fact we’re not equipped to fight a foe like this. We should get out of here as quickly as possible.” He studied Harrow’s face more closely. “Unless, that is, you intend to stay and continue the hunt?” 

Gideon knew Harrow’s expressions well enough to know the situation was about to get complicated. “Can we have a moment?” 

Sextus looked rather pointedly around the spare room, which didn’t offer much in the way of privacy. “Um. Sure?” 

Gideon pulled Harrow aside for a conference, but before she could speak, Harrow said, “You should leave with them.” 

“I should – what?” Gideon leaned in and spoke in a harsh whisper. “Okay, listen. You’ve lied to me, you’ve made some major mistakes, and you’ve been an idiot, but I’m not going to leave you down here.” 

Harrow pursed her lips. “Okay, yes, yes, and idiot is harsh, but fine. But I can’t risk something happening to you.” 

Gideon crossed her arms in her best imitation of Harrow at her most unreasonable. “I’m not leaving you down here.” 

Harrow sighed. Her shoulders slumped. “Then you pick.” 

Gideon stared at her. “What?” 

“You pick.” Harrow stared right back. “Stay and look, or leave. I’ll go along with whichever you pick.” 

Maybe it was the novelty of being given a choice. Or maybe it was because Harrow looked so forlorn, but Gideon sighed long and low, and when she opened her mouth, she found the words that came out were. “God, I wish I had my sword. Let’s get you your fucking house.” 

For once, Gideon had managed to surprise her. Harrow blinked. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Thank you, Gideon.” 

Gideon rolled her eyes. “Sure. I mean, you’re welcome. Okay, break.” 

They turned back around to find Sextus studying the ground and Camilla with her eyes conspicuously looking anywhere but at them. 

“We’re staying,” Gideon said. “Safe travels.” 

Sextus sketched a wave in the air. “You as well.” He paused before disappearing down the hall that led to the ladder and pointed at the monster. “What about that thing? It might not be capable of dying.” 

Harrow shrugged. “Personally, I’m fine with it being pinned there for all eternity.” 

Sextus looked at the monster; he looked at Camilla’s arm. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.” 

But the basement and its laboratories revealed nothing more. 

“Well,” Gideon said, “Did you have a plan B?” 

They were back in the pantry again, having abandoned the below-ground facility only after Harrow had been over every inch of the place several times, with an increasingly manic energy. She let the trapdoor slam shut and looked at Harrow, who was sitting on the floor, legs sprawled in front of her, head resting in her hands. “Cheer up, sad sack.” Gideon nudged the pool of black cloth and depression with her foot. “We’ve got the whole rest of the house to search.” 

This did seem to cheer Harrow somewhat. She rose, and they exited the pantry and emerged into the atrium, where a brilliant morning light was streaming in and the tall windows offered a view of a calm sea. Gideon squinted. If she shaded her eyes, she could see the retreating form of the ferry boat taking their fellow house hunters back to the mainland, no doubt to break the news about poor Magnus and Abigail, and to peruse Zillow to see if anything new had popped up. “There, see.” Gideon pointed. “And now that the house is empty you can make as many skeletons as you want to help out.” She slapped Harrow encouragingly on the back. 

Harrow stumbled forward a step, but was at least jostled from moodiness into action. She followed Gideon’s pointing finger, but rather than congratulating Gideon on her excellent point, she frowned. “I only count thirteen heads.” 

Now Gideon frowned. She counted and came to the same conclusion. “Did Agent stay behind, maybe?” 

“No.” 

It was not Harrowhark who answered her, but a more dulcet, languid voice. Gideon spun around, half-expecting to see another monster, no matter how incongruous the match of tone to form would be. But it was no monster. Instead, she found herself looking at a beautiful, dark-eyed woman. She was looking at Dulcinea. 

Dulcinea stood, pale and solemn, looking at them with one hand holding her shawl closed around her shoulders. “Which begs the question,” she began in her sultry cadence, “why did you two stay?” 

Harrow must have really been taking Gideon’s accusations of lying too much to heart, because she returned Dulcinea’s gaze and simply said, “ We stayed behind to find the treasure.” 

“Ah.” Then Dulcinea spread her hands apart, palms up in a gesture of presentation. Graceful white wrists emerged from the embroidered sleeves. Nearly glowing in the decadent morning light that streamed through the windows, she said, “Tada. Here I am.” 

When they didn’t respond, Dulcinea coughed delicately. “You must be very talented to have defeated the guardian in the basement. Those things are a tremendous pain in the ass to make, so if we’re being honest, I wish you hadn’t put quite so many holes in it, but I have to admit, it was a very impressive display of raw power.” 

Harrow scoffed. “A lot of very complicated theorems went into animating that bone, I hardly think _raw power_ is a sufficient description of – ” 

Dulcinea cut her off. “I’m not here to argue with you about the state of your talent as it exists now. I’m here to offer you more.” 

This shut Harrow up. 

“You came here seeking necromantic treasure,” Dulcinea continued. “The ultimate treasure is power, and the knowledge to control it. I’m here to offer you that which you seek.” 

Harrow, for once, seemed to be at a loss for words. “So, wait. If – you’re – the treasure, and you’re – I don’t quite understand.” 

Dulcinea rolled her eyes as if this was all impossibly simple, although Gideon was, for once, with Harrow on this one, in the sense of having no fucking idea what was going on. “I am the treasure,” Dulcinea said, “in the sense that I am the end result. I am the living demonstration of the outcome. And you can be as powerful as I am, you can have eternal life, and the capacity to create and control anything you like.” She paused, and her gaze fluttered from Harrow to Gideon and then back again. “All you have to do, is sacrifice your partner.” 

Gideon began to very carefully, and as subtly as she could manage, size up all the possible exits from the room. 

“It’s really not such a big deal, you know. When you live forever, you will have time to find a complementary partner many times over. I’m not saying the road can’t be bumpy sometimes.” Dulcinea cast a thoughtful look around at the room they were in. “This house belonged to my latest ex-husband, for example. But I won it in the divorce.” 

She held out a hand and appeared to be considering the perfection of her manicure. “He loves this place. Which is why I had intended to sell it to someone I could be absolutely sure would raze it the ground and then build something absolutely monstrous. I’m afraid I got a bit spooked when Abigail Pent started going on about the historical value of the property. I was afraid she was going to manage to put the more promising candidates off.” 

“Oh – you.” Gideon was putting it all together now. “The window – ” 

“It was a bit dramatic,” Dulcinea said. “But I have to admit it was also tremendously satisfying.” 

Gideon began to see red. 

“I also failed to anticipate the extent to which the house’s reputation had spread. All I wanted was to attract the interest of a bunch of soulless developers. You can imagine the shock I got when instead a clutch of conniving young necromancers showed up.” She sighed. 

Harrow appeared deep in thought. “So this is something you did – this sacrificing of your partner?” 

“Oh, yes,” Dulcinea said. “Eons ago.” For a moment, she looked far away, but then her expression hardened and re-focused. “So let’s get to it then. Chop chop. Run her through with one of those bone lances you love so much, or whatever.” 

Harrow was motionless. Gideon began to edge away. And here it was – this is what she deserved from trusting a Nonagesimus. This was how it always turned out. It didn’t matter what they’d gone through in the last day, it didn’t matter what Harrow said, Gideon should have known this was how it would end. 

Harrow said, “And what if I say no?” 

Gideon froze. 

Dulcinea laughed, a high tinkling sound, like that of falling glass. “Oh, child. How perfectly ridiculous.” She paused to consider both of them. “But to answer your question, I suppose the most amusing thing for me would be to kill you both. Because after all, you simply must learn when to put yourself first.” 

The hairs on the back of Gideon’s neck began to rise, and she could feel thanergetic energy building, starting to crackle to life in the air. And if she looked closely, she could see the tiniest flutter of cloth at the edge of Harrow’s long sleeves, and she knew what that meant: one of those hidden bone chips being spun into new life. 

Gideon braced herself. 

Harrow threw up a thanergetic barrier so dense Gideon could barely see the shadowy outline of Dulcinea. “Gideon!” She screamed. “Run!” 

Any sane animal, any creature that operated on the basis of self-preservation, would follow that command on instinct alone. Anyone with any sense would get themselves out as quickly and unencumbered as possible. Would turn and run and _go_. 

But no one had ever accused Gideon of having an overabundance of sense. 

Gideon grabbed Harrow. She spared a brief second to hope Harrow could maintain that barrier while being slung over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and then she threw herself, Harrow in tow, through the window. There was sound of glass breaking and of sudden wind and the crash of water, but it was only two great strides to the dock, and then five more and they were leaping into the water. 

She felt tendrils of thanergetic energy reaching for them, and then she felt them fade as they swam in an inelegant, desperate crawl toward the retreating form of the ferry. 

The ferry, thankfully, was not so far away that it didn’t notice the crash and then the tremendous splash they made. Its form paused and then reversed course, and Gideon offered up a small prayer of thanks to whoever might be listening because frankly: these robes were not designed for swimming. 

She could not quite make herself let go of Harrow, and so hands hauled them into the vessel in one great heap. They lay gasping and sodden on the floor of the boat. 

Washed free of paint, Harrow’s face was pale. She had a dozen tiny cuts from the glass, and all Gideon could think was that must sting. The salt water must make it sting. Gideon tried to speak, and was surprised to find she had to swallow around a lump in her throat. “I thought,” she managed. “I thought you might want it enough to say yes.” 

Harrow shook her head. “You’re amazing, Gideon. I couldn’t of done any of this without you.” Her icy fingers clutched Gideon’s. “I wanted a home. I wanted a home, not a house. And it wouldn’t be a home without you in it.” 

Gideon clutched back, and pretended very hard the salt water on her face was just the ocean. She swallowed twice. “I just want you to know – I just want you to know I’m very uncomfortable with the amount of emotional honesty taking place right now.” 

Harrow’s face broke into a rather familiar, rather devious smile. “Deal with it.” 

****

**Epilogue**

****

Despite being objectively a very small studio apartment, it managed to contain quite a bit. 

It held a futon that could be described as lumpy even on its best days, and which doubled as a couch – convenient for post-workout naps or for throwing oneself onto in dramatic fashion, depending on the user involved. 

It held a stovetop, the burners of which all had to be lit with matches, and a nonfunctional oven that had been commandeered as storage for dishes. 

It held Gideon’s swords, neatly mounted to walls. A display she was quite proud of, even if Harrow did say they made the place look like a “half-assed, wannabe Medieval Times”. 

It held quite a few bone chips – a point of much-negotiated compromise – hung up on strands around the room like fairy lights. It held homemade bookshelves, which Gideon had spent a rather embarrassing amount of time crafting, whereupon rested tomes of necromantic lore, nestled up against issues of SWORD & SONG: MAIDENS REVEALED. 

It held a bathroom counter overrun with eight shades of black lipstick, and two different kinds of pimple cream. 

It held Gideon, who though she was loath to admit it, enjoyed having a miniature gothic abode to retreat back to when the normalcy of the world became too much. There was only so much time one could spend teaching children to swing a sword and haranguing parents into promptly venmo-ing payment before one needed a sepulchre’s stillness as respite. 

And it held Harrow – currently reading on the futon, legs folded beneath her, wearing a t-shirt that read WELCOME TO THE GUN SHOW, and which was loose enough on her to hang off one shoulder and expose a generous amount of white throat. 

Gideon leaned over and pressed her mouth to that joining of neck of shoulder. 

Harrow let out a small, apparently entirely involuntary gasp. “Gideon. I’m studying.” 

Gideon began to work her way up the side of Harrow’s neck. “Don’t you think you’ve been studying for a very long time now?” 

“It’s a very complicated topic.” 

“And don’t you think,” Gideon said, punctuating these words with tiny, nibbling bites. “That you’d absorb the information much faster if you were relaxed?” 

“I suppose you think you’re the expect there?” 

“I’ve read,” Gideon briefly captured an earlobe between her teeth, “a great deal of helpful literature on the subject. Gonna make you Harrow-_hot_.” 

“Please never say that again.” But she let herself be drawn onto Gideon’s lap. 

It was a very small apartment, but it managed to hold the promise of a tremendous future. 

It was home. 

* * *


End file.
